Day 11: Scarborough

The sun is trying to break through today and I arrive on the North Bay in Scarborough and the sea is seething pewter, roiling and hurling itself at the promenade. I love it like that so long as don't have to be on it!

This is Fred. He sits on a bench on the promenade, alone, staring into the horizon. He is a giant of a man in every way.

Fred Gilroy was one of six children born into a mining family in County Durham. On leaving school he became a colliery bricklayers, maiming surface buildings and shoring up mine shafts to keep the water out. He also joined the Territorial Army so when war broke out in 1939 he was immediately called up. He started as a gun aimer then served as a Regimental Police Officer.

On April 15th 1945 the British 11th Armoured Division took surrender of Bergen Belsen concentration camp 30 miles south of Hamburg. They smelt it before they saw it.

The camp was full of typhus, dysentery and TB and 20,000 naked emaciated corpses. Of the 50.000 who had somehow survived, 13.000 died after the liberation.

A month later Fred celebrated his birthday. He was just 24 years old and he never forgot. He remembered it and grieved over it every birthday for the rest of his life. Tomorrow is May 13th - Fred Gilby's birthday.

Fred came home from war and resumed his job. He died in 2008.

He was just an ordinary man, who, like millions of other soldiers today are drawn into a conflict not of their making, where they make friends only to see them die. Like them, he fought an enemy he rarely saw and created memories he'd rather have forgotten.

Ray Lonsdale created this giant of a piece on Scarborough Promenade, and I personally think this piece 'Fred Gilroy and the Belsen Stragglers' is a timely reminder and a moving tribute lest we forget.

I parked at the top of the town and searched for a random stranger to give me my itinerary for the day. I met a traffic warden.

He added to, and confirmed, the ideas my hostess of last night had suggested.

So first stop for Morgan who loves castles (and has a great castle blog) it had to be Scarborough Castle. As massive and old as most castles are.

Morgan's rates castle turrets and gives them a score out of 10. Well darling daughter, Scarborough houses love turrets too!

The church of St. Mary's near the castle with fabulous views over the sea.

It is a beautiful sandstone building that has also suffered war damage in the past- from cannon fire from the castle, but I think the sandstone, eroded by wind, rain and time, often creates beautiful art work naturally.

In the graveyard I discovered the grave of Anne Bronte. What a beautiful place to be.

Beside the church is a narrow road down through the old town onto the busy harbour. Serious working boats here, as well as the leisure variety.

Sometimes a council does something so odd you wonder if their members have had an imagination transplant. On the harbour, a tourist stop where I saw four coaches including two from Europe, the council have closed the tourist information office. WHY? There is one by the library a local told me. I am a tourist. I need the tourist information office to tell me how to get to the library!!!

Obviously the remedy was to get an ice cream and where better than the iconic Harbour Bar. 

Even HRH Prince Charles approves as their proudly displayed certificate shows.

And no GF friends I did not munch the wafers. Sadly I binned them.

I went up Palace Hill and Eastgate into town to look for interesting shops.

You can have your photo taken in full costume in one shop which I thought was pretty great.

Have tea and GF burgers in Lovebrew.co.uk

Buy handcrafted gifts from Pedringtons Portal - all made by one lady and members of her family.

Other craft outlets can be found in the totally neglected public Market building. It has a produce market of sorts on the ground floor and potentially fascinating tiny shop spaces in the vaults underneath.

But the natives are not happy.

David Betts runs a shop with a serious WOW factor full of guitars, cowboy boots and all thing Wild West and North American culture. He has an international following and people travel up to 300 miles to buy his wares. He has had his place in the vaults for 16 years. The council had won a grant of 2.7 million and intend to refurb the building. Builders are in there now but as he says, with no imagination whatever or serious plans to mend the roof or promote the place properly, he's worried what the end result will look like.

Many businesses have already gone. The building felt woebegone and totally lacking in atmosphere or soul. And it could be as interesting and culturally diverse as Covent Garden. I think that is what the council intend. But then they also closed the tourist info so....?

Back to shopping and I met a very interesting man who runs a second hand bookshop.

He has 50.000 books and buys books in from people and gives them credit against books in his shop. He told me it keeps his stocks high, people through the door and his till ringing. See? Imagination!!!

Strangely there is also a handmade Swedish clog shop in the town.

"Why?"

" Why not?"the owner replied, then added that the original shoe shop owner had been Swedish.

And that was my cue to find my car and head over the Yorkshire Moors in search of yet more Rape Seed fields.

Good news folks! On the North Yorkshire Moors England Green and Pleasant land is still alive and very well and not yellow. My view was filled with a rugged heathery landscape with trees, sheep, dry

stone walls and spectacular scenery.

Robin Hoods Bay is a magical place in May when the weather isn't too clever. In high summer with coach loads of tourists I imagine for locals not involved with tea shops- it could be the very embodiment of Hell. Today  it was magical

And finally to Whitby that favourite of Vlad Dracula

So I found the cobbled street where my stay is to be. It's access only and I need access so drive up what appears to be an extremely narrow pedestrian only walkway, scattering shoppers like confetti.

I can feel them thinking whatever does that mad cow think she's doing? A man in a red t-shirt gets in front of me but I manage to avoid running him down, and push dogged on until I am at a dead end.

No choice. Have to go all the way back through the tourists.

The nutter in the red t-shirt stands in front of me again meaning I have to run him over or stop. I stop.

It's Dave, my host in Whitby. Thank God.